BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

I believe Trump even once said "Hello" to a woman he wasn't sexually interested in, clearly he can't be a misogynist sexual harasser!!

Late on Tuesday, President Trump tweeted something that’s embarrassing even by his standards: an unfounded conspiracy theory that originated in some of the internet’s worst “fake news” corners.

“Strzok-Page, the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers, have texts referring to a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015,” the president wrote. “SPYGATE is in full force!”

The supposed source for this claim is text messages between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were having an affair during the 2016 campaign. Their text messages reveal that they were openly hostile to Trump and supportive of Hillary Clinton.

The problem is that, as far as we know, none of those texts mentioned anything about there being a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign as early as December 2015. So where the hell did the president come up with that idea?

ThinkProgress’s Judd Legum did some sleuthing and seems to have pieced together the series of events that led to this tweet. It goes roughly like this:

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So what happened, it seems, is that a conspiratorial interpretation of texts between two FBI employees, one entirely unfounded in the actual evidence, got laundered from the fringe right-wing media to the right-wing mainstream through Fox News personalities — and eventually reached up to a member of Congress and the president of the United States

From Grifters Gonna Grift by the NYT Editorial Board:

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With all due respect to the NYT Editorial Board, Pruitt is a choir boy compared to the Dennison gang. China coughs up a 500 million dollar loan for a Trump project in Indonesia in exchange for lifting of penalties on Chinese company ZTE. Jared Kushner and his family have received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from Qatar and other foreign governments who want to make deals with the White House.

Pruitt has made do with a few thousand dollars in subsidized apartments, a bunch of first class plan tickets and stays at luxury hotels, a custom phone booth, etc. Absolutely peanuts. Really, Pruitt is just an insignificant piker compared to you know who. I think the NYT Editorial Board owes Pruitt an apology.

This is a tragic case of low self-esteem.

Pruitt could be shaking down corporate polluters for tens of millions of dollars — and he’s trying to use his influence to get a deal on a used Trump mattress that costs $1,750 new? He could get so many sweetheart deals from those he regulates that his wife would never have to work again — and he’s using pull so she can sell $3.99 chicken sandwiches?


Pruitt’s problem isn’t that he’s corrupt; it’s that he isn’t corrupt enough.

But not the electoral college, which is the vote that counts.

The cognitive dissonance on this forum is amazing.

Trump was elected by a majority of the Electoral College, the only way to be elected President. That means he won the popular vote in the states with the majority of electors. This is how you do it in the "United States of America".

I, with many other people in the UK, thought 'Oh, my God' when Donald Trump became your country's president, however he does seem more dedicated to sort out America's problems than the spineless politicians on this side of the Atlantic.

Here, in London - thank goodness I don't live there - there is a major crime wave of gang-related theft, with moped gangs attacking people and property in broad daylight robbing them of watches and phones, or anything else they can get their thieving hands on. Add to this a surge of knife crime, and London, not New York, has had more murders this current year.

The rudderless government does nothing. The opposition is just as hopeless. The Police have their hands tied through political correctness and staffing levels. Londoners are probably beginning to despair: many are leaving the capital, and have been doing so for the past few years. London is now very unsafe.

As much as I don't like Trump. I'm sure that he wouldn't have left this scenario unchecked if it happened in Washington DC or New York. He would be doing something. As for Teresa May and her Conservative Party, the political party that traditionally supports Law and Order, well they failed the people of the UK time and time again.

Even if these criminals get caught, many of the sentences that are handed down are derisory. At least in America I see hardened criminals and persistent offenders locked away for a long, long time.

You might complain about Trump in the USA, but I'd rather have a politician that actually wants to get things done than the lacklustre, hopeless bunch that have been elected to our own House Of Commons.

I would love to be a fly on the wall for the one on one meetings at the G7 (make that G6 + Trump) meetings starting tomorrow.

Trumps plan is so dumb he is inflicting modest pain spread over 6 of us and the collective not so dumb response is equal retaliatory tariffs targeting industries in Trump supporting States. I believe the EU package already has an escalator clause. Hopefully the pain kicks in before the mid-terms.

Better would be if Trump gets his head out of his ass but who would bet on that?

Talk about delusion!

The Electoral College makes the election dependent on just a handful of swing states. From Vox.com:

Why the Electoral College is the absolute worst, explained

A new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll suggests this might be the case. It finds that Democrats lead among registered voters nationally in the House generic ballot matchup by 50 percent to 40 percent.

But even more tellingly, the poll finds that by a whopping margin of 48-23, voters are more likely to support a congressional candidate who promises to be a check on Trump. And by 53-31, they are less likely to vote for a candidate who has supported Trump’s positions more than 90 percent of the time.


These numbers get more striking when you look at how they break down in all of the House districts that the Cook Political Report designates as competitive. According to the good folks at NBC, who sent over these numbers:

By 52-19, voters in competitive House districts are more likely to support a congressional candidate who promises to be a check on Trump.
By 55-28, voters in competitive House districts are more likely to support a congressional candidate who has opposed Trump most of the time.
It should be noted that the vast, vast majority of these seats are held by Republicans. The seats that this poll designates as competitive are the ones that Cook Political Report rates as Toss Ups, Lean Democratic and Lean Republican. Cook puts 25 seats in the Toss Up categories — 23 GOP-held, and two held by Democrats. Cook puts 27 in the Lean Republican category and seven in the Lean Democratic category — and of that 34, 31 are held by Republicans.

And so, in a whole lot of competitive seats mostly held by Republicans, majorities are more likely to vote for the candidate who will act as a check on Trump and will oppose him on most of his policies.

The poll’s other findings underscore the point. Nationally, Democrats enjoy a large enthusiasm gap: 63 percent of them are extremely interested in the midterms, while among Republicans, that number is only 47 percent.

You might complain about Trump in the USA, but I'd rather have a politician that actually wants to get things done than the lacklustre, hopeless bunch that have been elected to our own House Of Commons.

As much as I don't like Trump. I'm sure that he wouldn't have left this scenario unchecked if it happened in Washington DC or New York. He would be doing something. As for Teresa May and her Conservative Party, the political party that traditionally supports Law and Order, well they failed the people of the UK time and time again.

Mussolini made the trains run on time!

Mussolini made the trains run on time!

Some people will never admit that they are wrong, even when they are as wrong as sin.

But it is the language in the body of Trump’s 1989 death penalty ad that sticks with me. Trump wrote:

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He continued:

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That to me is the thing with this man: He wants to hate. When Trump feels what he believes is a righteous indignation, his default position is hatred. Anyone who draws his ire, anyone whom he feels attacked by or offended by, anyone who has the nerve to stand up for himself or herselfand tell him he’s wrong, he wants to hate, and does so.

This hateful spirit envelopes him, consumes him and animates him.

He hates women who dare to stand up to him and push back against him, so he attacks them, not just on the issues but on the validity of their very womanhood.

He hates black people who dare to stand up — or kneel — for their dignity and against oppressive authority, so he attacks protesting professional athletes, Black Lives Matter and President Barack Obama himself as dangerous and divisive, unpatriotic and un-American.

He hates immigrants so he has set a tone of intolerance, boasted of building his wall (that Mexico will never pay for), swollen the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and attacks some as criminals and animals.

He hates Muslims, so he moves to institute his travel ban and attacks their religion with the incendiary comment that “I think Islam hates us.”

He always disguises his hatred, often as a veneration and defense of his base, the flag, law enforcement or the military. He hijacks their valor to advance his personal hatred.

So I remember that. I center that. I hear “I want to hate” every time I hear him speak. And I draw strength from the fact that I’m not fighting for or against a political party; I’m fighting hatred itself, as personified by the man who occupies the presidency. That is my spine stiffener.

He hates immigrants so he has set a tone of intolerance, boasted of building his wall (that Mexico will never pay for), swollen the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and attacks some as criminals and animals.

The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force